Delta Airlines to upgrade its fleet of Lumia 820s to Lumia 1520s

Delta Airlines has been working closely with Microsoft in the past year both to help streamline customer service and save fuel. They first rolled out Nokia Lumia 820 Windows Phones to flight attendants for taking in-flight payments, and then a month later, replaced pilots’ heavy flight bags with Microsoft Surface 2 tablets.

Now, Delta has decided to upgrade its arsenal of Lumia 820 devices to Nokia Lumia 1520 phablets in order to increase the functionality of in-flight staff.

While the Lumia 820s were great for taking orders for refreshments, the Lumia 1520 will be able to interface directly in real-time with Delta’s retail operations, which are powered by Microsoft’s Dynamics AX system. This will allow for more in-flight transactions, such as instant seat upgrades, etc.

It’s not quite clear how many of the 19,000 Lumia 820-wielding flight attendants will be upgraded to the Lumia 1520, but it is great news for Microsoft in any amount. Delta is a large company, and the success that they have had using Microsoft-deployed technology could be strong motivation for other retailers and service providers to adopt similar setups.

That would be a huge win for Microsoft, who is fighting to remain at number one in the enterprise arena and for Windows Phone, who is trying to carve its own niche in an environment dominated by Android and iOS.